6. **CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S REPORT (SLF)**

7. **Purpose of the report**

To up-date members of key items since the previous Authority meeting

2. **Recommendation**

3. For members to note the report

4. **Key Items**

**Consultation on the draft woodland landscapes plan:** In mid-October we sent out to partners a consultation a draft of the Wooded Landscapes Plan (see appendix 1) which forms part of the Landscape Strategy review. This plan is intended to be aspirational but responsive to other landscape/land use issues. In particular it is trying to encourage a broad approach to increasing trees and shrub cover in the Peak District and to encourage opportunities for natural regeneration, as well as planting. The response deadline is 9 November 2020. The consultation has been sent to the member champion for Natural Environment, Biodiversity and Farming and the member champion for Cultural Heritage and Landscapes, as well as with the Chair and Vice Chair of Programme and Resources Committee.

**Peak Park Summit:** – In on 21 October we held our quarterly meeting with the police forces operating across the National Park. We agreed to develop a joint statement of intent for working together. This is currently in a draft format. The draft principles for collaboration are:

- PDNPA and Derbyshire Police will work together to support a safe home and welcoming place for people and wildlife in the Peak District National Park.
- We will follow the hierarchy of engage, explain, encourage and enforce, starting with engage whilst being ready to enforce where necessary.
- We will co-ordinate our efforts to best effect across the National Park and with all partners, working to shared priorities.
- We recognise and respect the distinctive roles of each organisation – the police as the agency responsible for crime prevention and law enforcement and the National Park Authority as the convenor for the place and its many communities speaking up for and caring for the National Park for all to enjoy its special qualities forever
- We aim to follow the key areas of collaboration below consistently and continuously

Draft areas for collaboration are: Communications: Reporting: Information sharing: Working across forces: and, Making this operational.

**Planning White Paper:** The Government published a Planning White Paper in August 2020 proposing radical reforms. The Nine National Park Authorities (NPAs) and the Broads Authority are the statutory local planning authorities for almost 10% of the country and worked together on a collective response, please see appendix 2 for a summary of the response. Complementary individual responses have also been sent in by each of the National Parks, the covering letter with the detailed response from the Peak District National Park Authority is in appendix 3.

**Green Growth Challenge Fund:** This fund was announced by the National Lottery Heritage Fund in September with a very short window for bids to be submitted. We heard this month that 2 expressions of interest submitted to this fund involving teams here at the Peak District National Park Authority, alongside other partners, have got through to the next stage to submit a more detailed application. These two bids are:

- **Access Unlimited**: A that submitted by YHA, alongside National Parks and others, to support young people experiencing our National Parks.
- **Deep Peat**: a project to evaluate the natural capital of the Great North Bog

**Staff surveys:** we carried out 2 snap staff surveys in March and May to understand how staff were in responding the coronavirus restrictions and what support they might need and to check what support they might need to help their well-being. These surveys had a 100% and 95% response rate and were invaluable in informing decisions we were taking as an organisation on how we work and how we can support our staff.

In September an online Investors in People (IiP) questionnaire was undertaken for our staff, this was run by an independent body to assess staff views on how we were doing as an Investors in People organisation. This had a 70% response rate and we showed an improvement across all 9 indicators of the IiP standard. The areas where we showed greatest improvements were in: Leading and inspiring people (7% increase); Recognising and rewarding high performance (9% increase); Creating sustainable success (8% increase). The areas showing improvement, but where we could do better were: Embracing change; Deploying the right people at the right time; Recognising and rewarding people; Developing leadership capability.

The assessors summary was that “there is still room for improvement across all scores in the 2020 survey. Ideally, we want more people to feel that they affiliate more to the Strongly agree category. It’s clear however that your actions over the past two years are working. You should all be congratulated for the improvements made to-date as they are clearly having an impact, despite COVID-19. Continue with the good work and high levels of communication and we will be well on our way to the higher performance levels by 2022.”

**Latest on the revised Government advice on COVID-19 restrictions:** on 31 October 2020 the Prime Minister’s announced there would be a further national lockdown to reduce day-to-day contact with other people to help reduce the spread of the infection. These restrictions came into operation on Thursday 5th November. The Senior Leadership Team continue to regularly assess the implications of the changing advice for the Authority’s operations to ensure we respond appropriately. Meetings of the Authority, Planning Committee and Programmes and Resources Committee will continue on-line as they have been operating for the past few months. In line with the Government’s advice we will continue to support our staff to work from home where they can. For those staff who are unable to work from home, Aldern House, which conforms to the requirements for a COVID secure workplace, will remain open Monday to Friday for staff.

4. **Appendices**

Appendix 1: Draft wooded landscapes plan Appendix 2: Government Planning Reforms National Parks England’s Reactions and Aspirations Appendix 3: PDNPA covering letter to the response to MHCLG consultation on the Planning White Paper – Planning for the Future

**Report Author, Job Title and Publication Date**

Sarah Fowler, Chief Executive, 28 October 2020